By Steve Huffman
Salisbury Post
SPENCER ó The balloon test held outside Spencer Tuesday was inconclusive.
That’s because the balloon being tested has gone bye-bye.
Spencer Mayor Jody Everhart said he was told that the balloon was aloft until about midday Tuesday when it suddenly set sail.
Really set sail.
“The last we heard, it was headed toward Georgia,” Everhart said.
Attempts to reach representatives of the Berkley Group, the company testing the balloon, were unsuccessful Tuesday night.
The balloon test was being staged Tuesday as a means of gauging how a 195-foot cell tower near the site of the proposed High Rock Raceway would affect residents of the area.
Representatives of the Berkley Group were to have appeared before Spencer’s Zoning Board of Adjustments this Thursday to seek a conditional-use permit to build the tower. They were also seeking a variance to build it to 195 feet.
The variance was needed because town ordinances stipulate that cell towers not exceed 100 feet in height. Bonnie Newell, a representative of the Berkley Group, said the tower needed to be 195 feet tall to serve the speedway, the town of Spencer and motorists passing on nearby Interstate 85.
She said that if the town didn’t give the company permission to construct a 195-foot tower, it wouldn’t make fiscal sense to construct it.
The huge balloon (Everhart said he was told it cost $500) was supposed to have flown throughout the day Tuesday, set aloft at 8 a.m. and continuing to fly until almost dusk.
Exactly why the balloon broke loose about midday, no one apparently knows.
Ann Brownlee, an outspoken critic of raceway plans, said she drove over Tuesday morning to look at the balloon. The tower it represented is to be constructed south of the raceway property, near Hackett Street.
Brownlee said the balloon was flying when she arrived at the site.
“It was flapping around in the wind pretty good,” she said.
Brownlee said she drove to the east side of the interstate. She said that when she returned, the balloon was long gone.Brownlee admitted that she was a likely suspect in having set the balloon free.
“I get blamed for everything,” she said, laughing.
Everhart said he was told that the Berkley Group’s plans to appear before the zoning board this Thursday are now postponed until the board’s May meeting.